


Catch Me

by Sholio



Series: Drugs Are Fun! (don't try this at home) [2]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Drugs, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2011-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 11:54:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal gets saddled with a drugged Elizabeth. (Apparently I am on a mission to drug up the whole cast.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catch Me

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Поймай меня](https://archiveofourown.org/works/320675) by [aqwt101](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aqwt101/pseuds/aqwt101)



"Look, look, look." Peter leaned over Jones, above the computer screen and its view of the street. He pointed to the woman who had just entered the screen. "Unless I miss my guess, _that_ is a bag of imported bootleg DVDs. This is so _on_ ; we have him now, and -- oh _shit._ "

"What? What?" chorused several voices from the interior of the van, and Jones said, "I didn't see anything! What'd I miss!"

"Not the -- no -- I -- dammit." Peter looked wildly around the van. "Neal!"

Neal looked up. "I have an alibi."

"No, no, I don't -- An alibi for what?"

"For ... whatever," Neal said warily.

Peter stared at him, then shook his head. "Forget your alibi. I just realized that I'm late for a very important appointment." Peter took out his keys, stared at them for a moment, then took a deep breath and tossed them to Neal. "I need every person here for the takedown except for you, which means that you have to pick up my wife from the dentist."

Neal looked from the keys, to Peter. "Pick up El from the dentist? Seriously? What's the catch?"

"No catch. Just pick her up and drive her home, then stay there 'til I get off work." Peter held out a hand and snapped his fingers until Diana, wildly guessing, gave him a clipboard. Then he began to scribble a map. "His office is in Manhattan, it's in your radius --"

"Hey, Peter," Jones said over his shoulder. "Morris just showed up. We need to get on this."

Peter jammed the clipboard into Neal's hands. "Do _not_ let anything happen to her. If you make me regret this, I hope you like the color orange."

"No pressure," Neal murmured.

 

***

 

Neal's first reaction to being out of the van and getting to drive the Taurus was pure delight. As he crossed town, his cheerful mood gave way to a certain growing dread.

Picking up El from the dentist. How hard could it be? No pressure. Right.

"I'm here for Mrs. Burke," he told the receptionist.

"Oh, the wisdom tooth extraction? Just a minute, I'll go see if she's ready to leave."

She vanished into the back and Neal could hear her saying cheerfully, "Mrs. Burke, your husband is here to pick you up!" Neal winced. Hopefully this didn't get back to Peter.

A moment later the receptionist reappeared. "She's doing fine, Mr. Burke --"

"Er, I'm not actually --"

"-- and she's ready to go. She'll need to sleep it off this afternoon, and definitely make sure that she takes her pain meds on a regular schedule. Here are her post-operative instructions and the prescription for Vicodin --" She shoved a packet of papers into his hands. "The insurance paperwork is all taken care of. Any questions?"

Neal blinked at her. "Um. No. But I'm not really --"

"Great! Right this way, please, Mr. Burke. Mrs. Burke, your husband is here --"

"Peter!" Elizabeth chirped in a tone that was quite cheerful though somewhat slushy, like she was talking through a mouthful of cotton, which probably she was. Neal stopped in horror as the receptionist helped her off a chair. He hadn't realized that she was going to be -- well -- _something._ Definitely not operating at a hundred percent.

El gave him a lopsided smile which morphed slowly into a crooked frown. "You're not Peter."

"He's not?" the receptionist said, her head snapping around.

Neal put on his best "trust me" smile. "I'm a co-worker of her husband, and close family friend," he said. "Peter sent me to pick her up."

"Then why did you tell me you were Peter Burke?" the receptionist demanded.

"I _didn't --_ " Neal began.

"Neal!" Elizabeth said in delight, and wrapped an arm around his neck. "Neal is the best," she told the receptionist.

"You know this man, then," the receptionist said carefully, her hand already on a phone.

"I ... do," El told her, enunciating with drunken precision. "Neal is the _very_ best. Wait, did I say that already?"

"And you trust him?" the receptionist said, which, in Neal's opinion, was the worst thing she could possibly have said. He closed his eyes in despair. If she ended up calling the cops, Peter was going to kill him ...

"Nope!" El said cheerfully. "Sorry, sweetie," she told Neal in a loud stage whisper. Neal wondered if covering her mouth would just make things worse. As the receptionist picked up the receiver of the phone, El babbled on, "He's a criminal, you know. But a very nice one!"

"I see ..." The receptionist cast about for Elizabeth's chart. "Excuse me, ma'am, I'm just going to call your husband --"

"Elizabeth, you trust me to take you home, right?" Neal said desperately, trying to surreptitiously pry one of her arms loose from his neck before she strangled him.

"Oh, yes, of course I do." El rested her head on his shoulder. "Neal is very nice," she told the receptionist, who had stopped in mid-dial, eyeing the two of them. "I knew from the very first moment I met him. He had nice eyes. And he escaped from prison because he was in love!"

"It's a very complicated story," Neal said to that suspicious glare, and managed to get free enough of Elizabeth to take out his phone. "I can call Peter. Would you like me to do that?" _Say no,_ he thought desperately, given that Peter was probably running around downtown Manhattan with a gun at the moment, and wouldn't appreciate his phone ringing in the middle of it.

The receptionist looked from the phone in his hand, to Elizabeth, who was snuggled happily on Neal's shoulder, and then set the receiver back down. "That sounds like an excellent idea."

Neal dialed quickly, and then stuck the phone into her hands. There was a very brief, one-sided conversation, and then she handed back the phone, her smile rather fixed. "Yes. Well. Sign here, please."

Neal signed an illegible, legally unenforceable scribble, and then finally got to lead El out of the room. She was walking okay, though he had to stop her from bouncing facefirst off the door.

"What did they give you?"

"I don't remember, but I like it," El said, and almost fell down the stairs.

"Let's take the elevator." Neal hastily steered her elevator-wards. "We need to pick up your pain meds, okay? Where's the nearest pharmacy?"

"Wheeeee," El said, starting to fall through the opening elevator doors, upon which she had been leaning. Neal caught her by the back of her sweater.

"Right. Let's hope there's a pharmacy in this building."

There was. He parked Elizabeth in a chair and read the sheet of post-operative instructions while waiting for the prescription. Pretty standard stuff: ice and a regular regimen of painkillers, lots of sleep, no solid foods, avoid alcohol, smoking or the use of straws ...

The pharmacist called his number, and he collected the little bag and Elizabeth, and steered her out to the parking garage.

"Where's Peter?" El asked as he maneuvered her into the Taurus. She sounded coherent, which hopefully meant that the happy drugged funtimes were starting to wear off.

"Peter's working," Neal said, buckling her in. "He got caught up in a case and forgot, so he sent me instead. But he wanted to be here," he added quickly, because, damn, he really could have phrased that better. He hadn't wanted to make Peter sound like the worst husband ever, but when you got right down to the basic facts ... _On the other hand,_ he thought as he pulled out into afternoon Manhattan traffic, _she knew what it said on the box when she married it ..._

"Well, I'm glad you're here," El said, and patted his hand, then let her head loll back on the headrest and apparently fell asleep.

 

***

 

She was drowsy but seemed to be a lot more together when he roused her at the Burkes' townhouse and helped her through the door.

"You know," El said, touching her face, which was starting to swell, "this really kind of hurts."

Neal fended off a happy Satchmo, and held up the little bag from the pharmacy. "This is why we have the magic of Vicodin."

Half a Vicodin later, El was ensconced on the couch with a blanket wrapped around her, Satchmo on her feet and _Moonstruck_ in the DVD player. Neal stared into the refrigerator, trying to find anything on the list of approved foods, and finally brought her a dish of vanilla ice cream from the freezer.

"Thank you, Neal." She still sounded slushy, but she took it from him without dumping it in her lap, which Neal counted as a plus. "I really appreciate you driving me home, but you could probably go back to work now."

"Actually," Neal said, twirling the car keys, "I'm under orders to stay for the rest of the afternoon."

"Really? Peter said that?" She got the far-off, besotted expression that had always made Neal simultaneously happy on their behalf, and a little bit jealous, because as sure as he'd been that Kate loved him, she'd never turned a look on him that was quite like _that._ But then El looked at him, and her smile was soft and fond. "If you're going to be here, do you want to pick the movie?"

"Really?" Neal looked at the TV screen, and Cher's '80s hair. "I have veto power?"

El waved an inviting hand at the rack of DVDs, and scooped up a spoonful of ice cream. "I have a feeling I'm going to be asleep soon," she said, snuggling down on the couch. "You drive."

Neal picked _Blade Runner._ El fell asleep in the middle of Harrison Ford pumping bullets into a replicant stripper's back.

 

***

 

Afternoon turned into evening, and the sunshine outside the windows faded into the purple of dusk. El woke for a while, and Neal swapped out her melted ice cream for a bowl of Campbell's chicken noodle soup and another half-Vicodin. She fell asleep again when he put in _Catch Me If You Can_ ; Neal thought the presence of this movie in Peter's DVD library was really just gloating, but he'd never seen it, so he might as well remedy that gap in his education.

The movie was almost done when Neal, lounging in one of the living room's comfortable chairs, heard the rattle of keys in the lock. Peter paused in the entryway, divesting himself of his coat while looking around the room. His gaze traveled to Elizabeth, curled up on the couch, and for a moment his face settled into a mirror image of El's besotted "thinking about Peter" expression. Then he moved along to the TV screen, and his smile became distinctly more predatory. "Oh, is this where he catches the con artist?" he said quietly. "This is my favorite part."

"No one likes a bad winner, Peter." Neal rose and handed back Peter's keys. "Did you get your man?"

"Don't I always?"

"Pfft."

They slipped off to the kitchen. Peter plunked a large brown takeout bag on the counter. "You eaten yet?"

"Lunch was catered by Campbell's. As in, the soup company." Neal peeked into the bag.

"Hope you like Thai," Peter said. "Tom yum soup, as mild as possible, for El. Pad Thai and yellow curry for the rest of us."

"Nice."

Peter cracked open a beer and passed Neal a bottle of wine. "So how's my honey?"

"Your honey," Neal said, "is just fine; all drugged up and fast asleep. She's very clingy when she's stoned, by the way." Peter's eyes went wide; Neal grinned at him. "Fortunately I'm a perfect gentleman."

"The threat of orange jumpsuits works wonders," Peter muttered over the top of his beer.

"I didn't need that," Neal said, mildly stung.

"I know you didn't. 's why I sent you to pick her up."

The implied trust left him briefly quiet.

"So," Peter said, putting two plates on the kitchen island, "Thai food and a movie?"

"Only if I can pick the movie," Neal said, rallying.

"Only if it isn't _The Sting._ "

"You have _The Sting_ , huh?"

"Hey, I believe in keeping up with the competition."

Neal scooped up a carton of pad Thai. "Also, by the way, the receptionist at Elizabeth's dentist might possibly think she's having an affair with me. I'll explain later."

"Wait, what?"

Putting that look on Peter's face was _always_ worth it. Neal laughed and escaped to the living room, one step ahead of pursuit.


End file.
